Jack n' Diane's brings dueling pianos and more to Brown Street space

Jun. 20, 2013

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Staff Writer

One town looks like the next for a traveling piano player like Matt Kschinka.

“Every town has a Walmart, every town has a tapas bar,” he said. “To me, it’s what you make of it.”

And to him what Greenville’s made of itself is pretty special.

That’s why he and his business partner decided to open Greenville’s first dueling piano bar in the space formerly occupied by Brown Street Jazz Club.

Kschinka visited Greenville on a weekday and saw a bustling, interesting downtown.

“We couldn’t believe they didn’t have a dueling piano bar,” he said.

They chose Greenville over San Jose, Calif.

Jack n’ Diane’s is expected to open the second week in July, he said.

Dueling piano is a bit of a misnomer, Kschinka said. The two pianists aren’t actually competing — except on “Dueling Banjos,” which someone always requests. Instead, the players pit one side of the room against the other or girls and guys or Clemson and Carolina. (Yeah, he’s been here long enough to know about that.)

Patrons request tunes and the two pianists play and cut up and entertain. Between them, they know a thousand songs or more. Rap, rock ’n’ roll through the years. They’re expected to know them all.

“People treat us like a jukebox,” Kschinka said.

When it’s time for a break, the two on stage move over to guitar, bass and drums to play as a band, making room for two more pianists to play.

“The music stays on,” Kschinka said.

Some of the duos are regulars, others part of the circuit that Kschinka used to travel.

“Our job is to use the requests to guide the show but don’t let the requests dictate the show,” he said.

Example: if someone asks for “Wonderful Tonight” to celebrate a 20th wedding anniversary at 11:45 p.m. and the crowd is lively and upbeat (sorry), they won’t get their request.

Kschinka is from Raleigh, N.C., and graduated from Elon University with a degree in piano performance. He taught lessons for a time, then started on the circuit eight years ago. Most recently, he helped open an Ernie Biggs dueling piano operation in Wichita, Kan. There are a number of dueling piano bar companies with multiple locations around the country.

Kschinka hopes Jack n’ Diane’s will become one, perhaps in a couple of years. That was another thing that’s attractive about Greenville. There are no dueling piano bars in Columbia, Charleston, Knoxville, Tenn., or the Buckhead area of Atlanta.

All ripe, said Kschinka. The closest are in Asheville and Charlotte, N.C.

On Brown Street, construction is almost complete. He’s got bids on pianos (electronic keyboards in grand pianos so the instruments can be accurately tuned together). And then there are the permits. South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control for food prep, South Carolina Department of Revenue for a liquor license and Greenville city for a business license.